Welcome Grayson Goff, Team Captain for X Factor, pro paintball team out of Texas. The Catshack Reports touched base with Grayson to find out such things as why the necessity to hold an unusual team tryout and what all is going on with X Factor.
Historically speaking X Factor was originally established after taking some of the best local talent from teams in Texas in 2003. Brett and Ryan Cohen along with Derrick Jordan came from a rookie team called Crisis Management. Todd Morrow and Mykel Kovar used to play for Gravity. David Griffin and Grayson Goff played for the Arch Angels, Alex Martinez and his son Sean played for Knights, Dusty and Devin Odell are from Guilty and Texas Storm, Dixon Yang and Archie Montemayor came from Fuel and Addicted. These were all local teams, playing at various events in a busy Texas paintball scene from 2000 or so, and on.
The following is Team Captain Grayson Goff’s responses to questions posed to him by The Catshack Reports as follows:
Our first National event was World Cup 2003, we played the 10 man rookie division under the name Crisis Management. About 2/3 of the current roster played that event. It was not a great start, we lost every single game and came in 48th place, almost dead last. This did, however, open our eyes to the new format of X-Ball being played by the pros… During the off-season, after changing the name of the team to X-Factor we signed up to compete in Division 3 X-Ball. What a move it turned out to be after losing our first match of a double elimination format in our first event, we won every match after, winning the LA PSP 2004. We continued to do well and ended up winning the Division 3 overall title in ‘04.
The next year, with the help of some local players from Pro team Arsenal, we stepped up to Division 1, the team went through a few growing pains, losing those same pros soon after and also losing Brett Cohen to a pro team. Even through the adversity and a changing roster, the team ended up winning the Division 1 overall title in ’05. The team also competed in the NPPL 7-man league in 2005, placing in several events.
At the start of the 2006 season, after bringing back Brett Cohen as well as enlisting pro’s Brandon Mayo and Andy Kopcok, the team decided to play Division 1 X-ball and Semi Pro NPPL. We won the first event, the hometown PSP Texas Open. This is when others really started to take notice of our style of play, using us as a benchmark to measure up to. By mid season 2006, after lobbying to become an NXL team for 2007, the PSP owners, making some internal changes, offered the team an NXL spot among 15 of the best teams in the world! We had decided the time had come, we now had the necessary chemistry, experience and leadership needed and were hungry to prove ourselves at the next level. Against much stiffer competition, with not much time to prepare, we placed 7th best in the world in our first ever NXL event in San Bernardino, CA. We ended the year at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in FLA – full of excitement, nearly beating #1 ranked Boston Red Legion, before they ended up winning the 2006 NXL title.
Whats the team home field?
Maximum Paintball in San Marcos, TX
Over the years how has the team fared competitively speaking?
I believe our team has always been a competitor since we went pro. Making our first pro cut along with winning our first pro 7-man event shows how much talent is on this team. To win an event in both leagues is also a huge achievement that only a handful of teams can say they accomplished that.
What would be some of the greatest highlights for XFactor in years past?
Like I mentioned before, taking 2nd place to Russian legion in 07 then going to win the next event. Winning our first pro 7 man event in HB was a big highlight too.
What were all the events that XFactor participated in for 2009 and how did the team do overall?
X-factor competed in both NPPL and PSP. We didn’t do too well overall, but had a strong finish in the West Coast Open and World Cup.
What were the highlights for XFactor in 2009?
This year had a lot of downs for us and very few ups. I believed we finished strong at World Cup and ended up losing to the best team there.
I noted you are holding open tryouts….when and where….and this is a bit unusual for a team to hold such a thing yes/no?
Tryouts will be next weekend (dec 12-13) at maximum paintball. I’d say this is a bit unusual but Texas isn’t like California or Florida. The concentration of players has been spread between all the big cities so we don’t get to see a lot of the talent in our state. I believe we’ll have a few kids show up and really surprise us.
Many teams practice with each other, which teams if any does XFactor like to practice with leading up to tournaments?
My favorite practice thus far have been with the Ironmen and Aftershock. Every time we’ve practiced these guys it’s been drama free with a lot of good games and good luck at the fields.
Who all is on the current roster for XFactor and have you lost members resulting in the need for an open tryout?
We will be losing the Odell brothers along with Cody Bayless. Sometimes life catches up and paintball still doesn’t pay the bills. I wish them the best of luck in their new endevours.
In your opinion what can we expect from XFactor in future?
Losing such solid players as the ones mentioned above means we will have a rebuilding year. I know Texas has a lot of talent so it won’t take us long to get into fighting shape.
Whats on the books for the team in 2010?
As every pro team has seen, I decrease in sponsorship dollars has put a squeeze on us. We are still considering all our options but will be making a statement regarding that on our PBNation forum soon.
X-Factor would like to thank its sponsors Alex Martinez, Invert Paintball, RP Paintballs, CP and Planet Eclipse.
